


Red

by someonestolemyshoes



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Airport AU, Gen, Tumblr Prompt, levihan - Freeform, levihan AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-28 18:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3865003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someonestolemyshoes/pseuds/someonestolemyshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Levi bought the book from the hot drinks vendor for twice the price he paid for his tea."</p>
<p>Prompt: it's me again i have an au request for levihan at the airport and it's two in the morning and they dont know each other but the flights are so delayed they notice they're reading the same book then you decide what goes after</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red

Levi bought the book from the hot drinks vendor for twice the price he paid for his tea. 

He’d never been particularly big on reading: between lectures and work and assignments and more work, he never found the time, and never really had the inclination to do so. But his flight was already pushing the hour mark in its delay, and there were no signs the weather would clear up any time soon and so he sat in the cold metal chair in the terminal, a cup of luke-warm tea in one hand and the book in the other. 

He’d chosen it for the cover. The vendor had only a few options available and Levi liked red - it was bold, always the first colour to catch his eye - and the authors name was semi-familiar, and the trailing black patterns over the spine were nice to look at and that was all Levi could bring himself to care about. 

He flipped to the back cover and curled deeper into his jacket. The terminal was large and open, cold air sitting, still and stagnant, around his fingers and the tip of his nose. The first line of the blurb read:  _Everything You Can Imagine is Real_

Levi closed his eyes and imagined being on his fucking flight, drinking hot tea 35,000 feet in the air and  _not_  reading the blurb of a book he really, truly didn’t give a shit about. Maybe in some alternate universe there was a Levi doing exactly that and thinking  _boy, it would fucking suck if my flight was delayed and I was stuck in a cold, drafty terminal for fuck knows how many hours with nothing but a_ book  _to get me by_. 

The voice over the Tannoy announced once more, low and monotonous and unapologetic, that  _all flights were delayed_  and that  _no planes would be leaving the runway until further notice_. With a shake of his head he turned back to the book, flicked through to the first page, and willed himself to read. 

In fairness, it wasn’t all that hard to get into. The writing style was interesting and the plot was intriguing from page one, and the only real hurdle was the late (or early, depending on how you look at it) hour, and the flash of red that flickered into his field of vision. 

The girl sitting across from him had her hand luggage spilled out onto the seat beside her, her knees tucked up to her chest, and a book obscuring her face from view. 

A book with a red cover, black, thorned vines curling over the front and a familiar authors name printed across the top. 

Her copy was decidedly more well-read than his. The corners were dog-eared and the spine was cracked and worn, the blurb faded, the covers torn and, in some places, missing entirely. She flipped the page and readjusted the heels of her boots against the edge of her chair and as she did, a loose page floated out of the book and onto the floor. It carried silently through the still air and slid to a stop near Levi’s feet. 

The girl lowered the book and glanced at the fallen page, then at the book in Levi’s hands and then, grinning, she met his eyes. 

Levi had seen prettier girls, of that he was certain. Girls with glossy hair and petite features and winning smiles, girls who wore skirts and sundresses and open-toed shoes. 

But there was something about  _this_  girl, in her leggings and her clunky boots and the checkered shirt that she’d buttoned up wrong, the jacket that was a couple of sizes too big for her, the hair pulled back in the messiest pony-tail he’d ever seen, that made his gut clench. 

She unfurled herself and stretched to her feet - she was taller than him, that he could tell, all arms and legs and fabric - and strode over to him. 

“This copy is falling to pieces,” she said, crouching and scooping the loose paper. “Read it one too many times, I think.” She smiled up at Levi and his stomach tightened a little more. Nothing changed up close; her nose was still big and her jaw was still sharp and her hair was still  _offensively_  messy, but behind her glasses Levi saw a pair of what can only be described as Disney-fucking-princess eyes; big and brown and laced with thick black lashes and she blinked and everything below his diaphragm melted. 

“You like it?” She said, and Levi frowned. “The book,” she continued. He looked down at his own copy and shrugged a shoulder. 

“Never read it,” he said. 

“Well you’re in for a treat, trust me.” She clapped him on the knee and launched herself into the empty seat beside him. “I’ve read a fair few books, but this is my absolute favourite. The plot is just so  _fascinating_ , and the characters are super interesting and the  _villains-._ ” 

Levi hummed and she stopped, and he turned back to his own pages but the red of her copy kept catching his eye and he found his gaze drifting her way over and over and  _over_  again. 

“Any idea when they’re gonna have things back in the air?” 

Levi cocked a brow and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. Her face was buried in her book. Levi blinked at her. 

“We’re in the same room,” he said, and she peered over the top of the pages and blinked back. “You’ve heard everything I’ve heard.”

She rolled her eyes and jabbed at his thigh with her toe, and Levi wondered, briefly, whether she understood that it wasn’t socially acceptable to touch complete strangers in quiet airport terminals.

“Where were you headed?” She asked. Levi lowered his book to his lap and watched her press her nose between the pages of her own copy, so close that her eyes were crossing to read the words. 

“Home,” he said. 

“Funny.” She turned the page. “Where abouts is home?” 

“Newcastle,” Levi said. It wasn’t strictly true; his family home was in a tiny village right on the corner where Nothing met Nowhere about an hour out of the city, but he felt no real need to explain that to her.

“Ouch,” she said, “I’ll bet the weather’s worse on that end than it is here. I’m going back to France to visit my parents for the holidays but it’s not so bad over there, just a little wet.” 

She pulled her face from her book, then, and thrust out a hand. 

“I’m Hange Zoe,” she said. Levi eyed the proffered fingers - the nails were a little dirty and the skin looked a little dry – and he shook them warily. Hange beamed, her eyes did a _thing_ , and Levi’s lungs forgot, for a moment, how to function. 

“Levi,” he said. 

“No surname?” 

“Not important.” 

“Alright-y,” Hange hummed, and lifted her book back to her nose. Levi ran his fingers around the edge of his own copy and danced the tips up over the spine. It was shiny and unbroken and new, the pages stark white compared to the yellowing leaves in Hange’s copy. She had to curl her fingers awkwardly around the binding as she read, turning each page and catching the loose papers that threatened to spill out as she did.

The announcer crackled over the speakers then and said, ‘ _We are pleased to inform you that the B595 flight to Paris, France, will be departing from Terminal two in approximately forty-five minutes. First class passengers, please make your way to Terminal two’._

“That’s me!” Hange said, lowering her book and twisting her spine to crack it. “I’m gonna go grab a coffee before I leave, you want anything?” Hange slapped her book closed and dropped it onto the chair beside her. 

Levi considered his now-cold tea, his near-empty wallet, and his freezing fingers and said, “Tea. Black, one sugar.” 

Hange was off before he had the chance to hand over what little change he had left. 

She returned with two cardboard cups and face-splitting smile and she shoved one at Levi. He took the tea with a nod and shook the change in his palm, but Hange waved him off. 

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. You’re gonna need it more than I am.” 

“Tch,” Levi scoffed, dropping the change back into his wallet and shoving it into the back pocket of his jeans, “thanks for the reminder.”

“Any time, buddy.”

Hange propped her cup in one hand and re-packed her carry-on bag with the other. Levi’s eyes drifted to the worn, weathered book on the chair and he tapped the corner of his own copy against his thigh.

“Well,” Hange puffed out a breath and a few loose strands of hair bounced up and out of her face, “it was nice meeting you, Levi Not-Important. Fingers crossed your flight isn’t too much longer.”

Levi shot a sceptical glance at the announcements boards, which featured the word  _delayed_  beneath too many scheduled flights, and Hange laughed.

“Poor unfortunate soul,” she said. “See you around, Levi.”

Levi scooped up her book and brushed his thumb over the cover. It  _felt_  old, brittle and fragile and there was dust and dirt ingrained in the cover and it made his skin crawl to touch.

“This is filthy,” he said.

“It’s not so bad,” said Hange, and she held out her spare hand to take it from him. Levi paused, then held out his copy to her.

“Take better care of this one,” he said, and Hange beamed, pulling the copy from his fingers and clutching it to her chest.

“I took excellent care of that one,” she said. “A worn book is a loved book.”

Levi glanced at the faded copy in his lap and ran a finger over the title.  _A damn well loved book_ , Levi thought, teasing a tear in the corner with the edge of his nail.

“I think all the pages are there,” Hange said, and she slipped her new copy into her bag. “I try to keep it all together.”

“God fucking knows how,” Levi grumbled. Hange barked out a laugh and clutched her coffee cup in both hands.

“Thanks for the book,” she said, and Levi waved her off. “See you!”

And then she was gone, and Levi was left with a free cup of tea, a book he bought for the price of another book, and a strange, hollow feeling in his gut. He sipped his tea and let Hange’s copy fall open to the beginning of the second chapter. Three loose pages fluttered to the floor from somewhere in the middle.

**

He read thirty three chapters before they finally called for his flight. Hange hadn’t been wrong, and Levi was loath to admit that the book  _was_  very good; a little weird, and a little messy, but good.

When the plane reached 35,000 feet and the flight attendant brought him a steaming cup of rich black tea, he tipped his chair back and flipped to chapter thirty four, and continued to read. The book was closing; the villain was gone and the hero was aging and life was as it should be, and Levi found himself almost anxious to see how things really ended for the protagonist. 

He sipped his tea, flicked the paper over, and choked into his cup. 

The last page was fucking  _missing_.

**Author's Note:**

> Alright-y there we go! Maybe they’ll see each other again, maybe not. In my mind they’re both students and they’re both studying in the same city and maybe one day Levi is in a tea shop and maybe a flash of red catches his eye and maybe it’s Hange, reading the shiny new copy of her favourite book and chuggin’ coffee from a travel mug the size of her face and maybe he’ll pluck up the courage to talk to her again. But who knows? I’d have to write it to find out. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments, and feel free to follow my tumblr @ someone-stole-my-shoes if you have anymore prompts/comments/advice/levihan headcanons and ramblings/whatever else.


End file.
